China in Ten Years? A Nation of Creativity and Innovation

As part of our ongoing series of China in the next decade, enoVate researcher, Beibei contributes her unique viewpoint on a prominent Chinese youth topic to rise over the next ten years: Chinese creativity and innovation.

China’s DIY is no longer “DIY, for myself”. Today’s Chinese DIY is “DIY, for sale”.

I still remember, back in high school, most of people’s view of creativity is mainly one of DIY. DIY used to mean only to to make handmade arts and crafts, not for sale, but for personal use. Yesterday I asked George Lin, a Hangzhou Science and Technology University Student and leader of enoVate Hangzhou street team: “What’s the first thing come to your mind when we are talking about creativity?” His answer is quick and short: iMart.

Since 2006 iMART（also means “I am art) is substantially developing in many Chinese cities such as, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Xi’ An, Xiamen, Fuzhou etc. Through iMART Chinese youth have begun to notice that creative ideas not only bring people self-confidence and happiness but also have a connected commercial value. Like the slogan of iMART, “Create a path, and innovation will pay you back” People sell their ideas and products at creative bazaars and on professional online platforms such as http://creativecn.cn or http://www.fengguo.com.cn. The increasing number of creative shops () on Taobao also give us confidence that we will continue see the benefits of creative industries in China over the next 10 years.

Social Responsibility and the Creative Industry

Similar to today’s 90’s generation, when the yesteryear’s 80’s generation kids were in high school, we used to be regarded as a generation that lacked responsibility. However, most of us graduated from university and contributed positively to society various fields, society gave us a new name, “ the Budding Chinese Entrepreneur” or ” The new responsible generation”.

It’s the aim and goal of many of China’s youth creative organizations to give back to society. You Can Design is a public online platform for collecting creative ideas. Their concern is to “solve social problems through innovative thinking and design”. Their main goal is to indentify the social problems, organize youth workshops and discuss the problems with volunteers and designers. They then collect creative solutions on their platform and encourage youth to solve the problems together. Similar organizations like Cnature , ifairchina and indie designers like Tom Shi exemplify that individuals have power to use their creative strengths to reward society. In ten years time, the 90’s generation are going to live on their own without their parent’s support. Who then will drive the mainstream creative industry in China?

Government Support and Education

Every five years, the Chinese government designates a “5-year plan”. In the most recent 5-year plan, the Chinese government listed the Chinese Creative Industry as a new “pillar industry”. In two years time the creative zones in Beijing will increase to 30. In fact, the creative industry zones in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Changhsha already act as the name card of the city, promoting creativity and tourism both to locals and foreigners.. Also select Chinese Universities, such as Hunan University, are focusing on human-centered design and design strategy. Hopefully in ten years, students are able to have a creative class as a “required course”.